


come on, try a little (nothing is forever)

by HearJessRoar



Series: Camp Bright Moon Interludes [4]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Car Accidents, F/M, Hurt, Minor Injuries, Panic, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: She knows she shouldn't jump to the worst possible conclusion when Sea Hawk won't answer his phone after they have an argument.Sheknows,okay?But...you shouldn't drive when you're upset.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra), Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Series: Camp Bright Moon Interludes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770541
Comments: 12
Kudos: 114





	come on, try a little (nothing is forever)

Their quiet night at home was going to hell in a handbasket, she realized somewhere in the back of her mind while the rest of her was engulfed in fury.

Who was this angry woman, she wondered. This angry woman who had emerged apropos of practically nothing?

Was this who she was now?

She hoped not. She was barely even aware of the hateful things pouring from her mouth, the nasty things designed specifically to stab all the tender places in Sea Hawk's soul.

Had she always had them on the tip of her tongue, at the back of her throat, ready to loose them on him at any moment?

God, apparently so.

_who even am i ohmygod what am i saying no_

“-and I cannot _believe_ you pulled that shit last week!”

“Mermista-”

“You didn’t even warn me! And now you want me to what, uproot my whole life to accommodate you? Get fucked, Sea Hawk.”

Her words hung in the air, suspended between them in a space that suddenly seemed to stretch for miles. Mermista saw his sharp intake of breath, wished immediately that she could reach out and grab the words back, stuff them back deep down into the darkest part of her soul, but she couldn’t. And even if she could, she wouldn’t.

Her pride would never allow it.

She swallowed, pursed her lips defiantly, and silently dared him to say something with a raise of her eyebrows.

_hurt me back c’mon_

He licked his lips and nodded, looking resigned. “Okay.” he said. 

_onetwothreethu-thudthud_

“Okay.” he repeated.

He nodded again, apparently to himself because he suddenly seemed to be looking right through her, and turned towards the door. He reached out on his way past the coat rack, yanking down his jacket, the one with the broken zipper he hadn’t fixed yet.

He didn’t even give her the satisfaction of slamming the door on her, to know that she had gotten him just as angry as she was. Instead, the door closed behind him with a decisive little _click_ that echoed in her ears, a high pitched ringing noise like when an old tube tv got turned on. 

Mermista deflated. Her stomach seemed to fall somewhere around her kneecaps and she sagged inwards, wrapping her arms around her middle and hunching over.

The wall met her shoulder with a force she barely felt, and Mermista slid sideways to the floor, pressing one hand to her mouth like she could force the anger back behind the cage of her teeth.

_what the fuck is wrong with me_

She hadn’t meant to say that, any of it. She knew he’d been eaten up with guilt about how he’d gone about dropping the bombshell on her about leaving his life behind. She _knew_ , she _understood_ , why the fuck would she say that?

Her stomach churned as hot, salty tears stung the corners of her eyes.

God.

She was a _monster._

~

Four hours.

He had been gone for _four hours._

The roiling in her stomach refused to cease as Mermista chewed her thumbnail. She hadn’t bitten her nails like this in _years,_ now she’d gone and torn it down to the quick, oh god. She tasted blood in her mouth.

She ignored it.

_Four fucking hours._

Even during their arguments over the summer, he’d never been gone like this before. She’d tried to call his phone, but gotten his voicemail instead. He'd never screened his calls before, never ignored her like this.

She had fucked up so bad.

The snow had started just before he had left, and hadn't let up since. Her stomach churned; Sea Hawk didn't have very much experience with driving in winter weather. He came from a milder climate, one with warmer winters and hotter summers. He wouldn’t know what to do with snow like this.

The uneasy feeling in her gut remained firmly as she tried once more to call him.

Straight to voicemail.

Mermista chewed on her bottom lip, feeling the bruise she'd worried into it when she wasn't busy gnawing on her thumbnail.

She grabbed her car keys and her parka.

~~~

The town wasn't _that_ big, she reasoned with herself. He was probably hunkered down at _Seaworthy,_ or maybe at Glimmer's, or Bow's, or even Adora and Catra's? Maybe? Possibly?

She wished that she had had the foresight to get literally _any_ of their numbers at some point over the summer. But without Sea Hawk around, it wasn't like they were exactly clamoring to hang out with her anyway.

She didn’t even know where any of his friends lived in town, and while she knew where Entrapta’s shop was, she doubted Sea Hawk would have camped out there.

Maybe his phone was dead.

Maybe _he_ was de-

She slid over a patch of black ice, her car making a sudden skidding arc of the back tires. Time slowed to a crawl as her heart pounded in her skull, making her very aware of the blood rushing through her body like a current in her eardrums. Mermista did her best not to slam the brakes, holding them carefully and turning into the spin instead of forcing the car back the other way like her instincts wanted her to. She flipped through her last conversations with Sea Hawk, wondering frantically if she’d ever told him what to do if he spun his truck on ice so he wouldn’t oversteer.

There was a good chance it had never come up. She cursed at herself for not thinking about it before, and now he could be in serious trouble, and just the very idea of it was enough to make her lose her cool head and concentration.

She couldn't think about that, not while driving. Not in this weather. Her little Forte couldn't handle it, and neither could she.

She straightened out from the skid, pulling back onto the road. It was a sobering reminder of why Mermista was out here; she had more experience in this sort of weather than Sea Hawk did, and even she wasn't impervious to a sudden fishtail.

The snow had lightened, but not by much. The good news was that it wasn't sticking to the roads, though it _was_ piling up fast in the ditches. But even without it clogging the road, that just meant that it was blowing across in powdery sheets, obscuring both the center line and the shoulder.

She fumbled blindly for her phone, never taking her eyes off the road. Her headlights weren't making much of a dent in the darkness dotted with oncoming snow. Mermista called his phone again, her thumb missing the call button until she dared to glance down for just a second to hit it.

No answer.

Staring blankly into the snow painting streaks across her vision, Mermista had the passing thought that when she was a kid she had always begged to sit in the front seat of her dad’s car when it was snowing. It had looked like the movies when rockets flew through space, seeming to her like all the stars in the galaxy rushing past their windshield.

Now it just gave her anxiety.

That, and the complete and utter silence from her boyfriend.

Because that was what he was. He was her boyfriend, and she loved him, but she also liked him, which kind of seemed more important somehow. So _why_ had her big stupid mouth opened and said one of the worst things she could think of to hurt him? Mermista couldn’t even remember what she had been so mad about in the first place.

Okay, yes she did, there was no point in lying to herself. What was she trying to prove anymore, out here on this lonely road in the middle of a snowstorm, searching desperately for the man she _loved._

The word felt sticky and tainted even in her thoughts, and Mermista hated herself more for it.

Sea Hawk had suggested, not even a firm suggestion, something about finding a bigger apartment. And that had set her off because apparently somewhere in her head she was a little resentful that he could just drop everything in his life and move around willy-nilly in accordance with his whims, and her apartment was _hers_ and she had roots and responsibilities and a life here, and they couldn’t all be a free-spirited man without a plan when there were bills to pay and food to buy and rent to make.

Her parents needed her to be able to make a life for herself on her own. She needed the steady job and the paycheck and the apartment, because her parents couldn’t be there for her anymore, not on their limited income, and everything she had that didn’t go to necessities went right back to them. She couldn’t _afford_ to move.

And instead of explaining any of this mass of roiling emotions to him, like a normal, stable person, Mermista had told him to _get fucked._

Shit on a goddamn stick, she really needed to learn to express her emotions properly.

And right now her emotions were _please don’t let that be the last thing I say to him._

She took a corner too sharp and slid again, mercifully short this time. Her heart hammered anyway, feeling like it was trying to smash its way out of her ribs.

This was the road out of town, back to the interstate, and if he’d taken this then there wasn’t any possible way for her to catch up to him tonight.

The snow had gotten heavier again, making the trees look like they appeared suddenly out of the darkness ten feet away from her. Their branches were growing thick with piled snow, and Mermista had the terrible and completely unrealistic thought that one of them could have fallen and landed on Sea Hawk’s head and killed him instantly.

Which didn’t make any sense, because why would he be wandering the roadside under the trees?

Anxiety brain was such a little bitch.

Logic had no place in her head when The Anxiety was in charge, and no matter how many times she reasoned with herself that it wasn’t even _probable,_ she just couldn’t shake the image of Sea Hawk getting his head cracked open by a snow-laden tree. 

_disturbing_ and _unwelcome, thank you intrusive thoughts, glad you’re here to keep me company in this very trying time._

She barely finished arguing with herself when a dark shape loomed from the shadowy ditch, too big to be a branch.

Her heart leapt to her throat as she saw the tires in the air. Mermista hit the brakes hard, too hard, and skidded to a lurching stop. Throwing the gearshift into park and nearly falling out of the car, her boots crunched in the slowly freezing snow as she stumbled down the embankment.

The falling snow had covered up the tracks, but it was clear what had happened. The driver had lost control, slid down and flipped at least once, probably twice, and landed on the roof of the cab.

As she approached, her stomach hit her knees again.

Sea Hawk’s Scottsdale.

_oh god please no_

The old truck’s windshield was shattered from the impact and red slivers of tail light were peeking through the snow like glitter. As Mermista trudged her way to the driver’s side, she hoped to god that she wasn’t going to find his battered body hanging upside down from his seatbelt.

She didn’t, but what she did find was almost worse.

No one.

The door was open, the cab was empty, and there was blood on the dashboard.

All the breath left her lungs and her legs gave up on holding her; she collapsed into the snow, an immeasurable amount of it melting immediately into her jeans.

She bit down on her index finger to keep from screaming, drawing blood at the knuckle.

Okay.

_Okay._

_Use your head, girl._

No one in the cab, but no hole in the windshield. The door was open, but it had been opened _after_ the truck had stopped, because there was snow and grass pushed up around the frame like it had scraped. Sea Hawk hadn’t been ejected. 

Either he had been conscious enough to open the door himself and crawl out, or someone had already found him.

She ignored the blood on the dashboard. If she didn’t, she was going to tip over the precipice into a panic attack, and Sea Hawk needed her.

Squinting into what she could see of the ditch illuminated by her headlights, she noted that she could barely make out footprints pressed into the snow. Their edges were soft, curved, mostly filled in. Whoever had been here hadn't been gone for too long; half an hour, forty five minutes at most. That had the potential to be either good or bad; there was no way to tell when the accident had happened, and if Sea Hawk was found immediately, he might be okay.

If not…well.

When she tried to stand, to retreat to her car to gather her thoughts, to calm her racing heart and warm her chilled fingers, Mermista discovered her legs weren’t obeying her. So she sat.

And sat.

And stared.

Snow had started to gather inside the truck from the open door, piling in soft tufts of white like sand dunes. If this hadn’t been the worst night of her life, Mermista might have found something poetic and peaceful about it.

She jumped as a tinny noise cut through the suffocating winter silence. Something lit up the cab and Mermista practically launched herself to it, realizing it was Sea Hawk’s phone.

The cracked screen was glowing from under the seat. Or, on top of the seat, really. Perched like a shelf, now that the truck was upside down. She grabbed for it, and realized it wasn’t a call. 

It was a reminder for Sea Hawk to do the dishes before he went to bed.

Because he was trying to pull his weight around the apartment while he was job hunting, and she hated doing the dishes and he wanted to make anything he could easier for her and _and_ -

Her breathing came faster, faster, choppier, painful, hot tears streaking down her face, contrasting with the cold wind biting at her cheeks, she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs her ribs felt too small too tight and _please please please someone help please i don’t know what to do sea hawk please_.

Her eyes stung and the frost was starting to chap her lips when she finally got her legs back under her control.

Her drudging walk back to her car felt like it took a year. Up the embankment, into her still-warm seat, feeling the cold seeping into her bones, her soaked pants clinging to her and chilling every inch of her skin. Her ears ached in the artificial heat of the car.

His phone was still in her hand, and she realized all his missed calls were from her.

No one else had called him.

He didn’t _have_ anyone else.

_fuck._

That set her off again, that no one but her had known he was missing, that he could have been hurt and probably _was._

Oh, she was really running the full gamut of the spectrum of human emotions tonight. This must have been punishment for repressing them. She rested her forehead against the steering wheel, letting the fuzzy teal cover brush at her hairline.

God, why couldn’t he just have argued back at her like every other guy in the world.

But no, he had to take the high road and let her cool off and now he was quite possibly de-

No.

No, she couldn’t think that way.

_if i have to go back to watching horror movies by myself i’ll have a bitch fit._

Great, now she was hysterical.

Mermista startled again as her own phone chimed from the cupholder. Picking it up, she was perplexed to see that she had several missed calls herself, all from Scorpia. The last chime was a text pleading with Mermista to call her back.

She’d barely opened her missed calls to hit Scorpia’s number when the phone rang in her hand.

“Wha-”

~~~

She didn’t know what she had expected when she ran into the ER waiting room at half past 11 on a Tuesday, looking for the boyfriend she’d managed to drive off, but it really wasn’t this.

The room was full of people, and they were all staring at her. Normally, that sort of reaction would make her want to crawl under a rock forever, but Mermista had the feeling that they understood exactly why she’d made such a dramatic entrance, since it turned out she knew every single one of them.

Catra, petting an anxious looking Adora’s hair, her other hand occupied with Adora’s twisting, fiddling fingers. Glimmer and Bow, Glimmer pacing the length of the room while Bow sat on the floor, chewing what appeared to be the only fingernail he had left. (Mermista could relate.) Entrapta and of all people, Hordak, camped in a corner to themselves, Entrapta’s worried hands constantly tugging her hair while Hordak kept his palm between her shoulders.

And Scorpia, biting her finger, bouncing on her toes, and pulling away from a teary Perfuma the second Mermista burst through the door. She scooped her boss into a very tight hug, and if Mermista had been less turmoiled, less completely compromised by the night’s events, she might have threatened jokingly to fire her for it. As it was, she returned the hug wholeheartedly.

“He’s fine, he’s fine,” Scorpia repeated several times into Mermista's hair, like she was trying to convince herself. “Glimmer just talked to the doctor, he’s okay, he’s gonna be on a whole lotta painkillers, but he’s okay.”

She put her down when Mermista didn’t answer. 

She couldn’t.

All her words got caught around the lump in her throat, aching and choking.

Scorpia kept talking. “-and I’m _so_ glad that Glimmer thought to call Perfuma because nobody had your number except me and we all knew you’d be worried, I mean, _duh,_ and-”

“I was out looking for him,” Mermista interrupted, cutting her off. “I found his truck.” Her voice sounded hollow and small even to her own ears. She shrank into herself, regretting mentioning it as everyone’s gaze turned pitying.

Scorpia sucked in a gasp through her teeth, looking pained. “ _Hoo boy_ , boss. I’m sorry, you must have been so scared.” She reached out to hold Mermista’s hand, and Mermista let her. Scorpia was a touchy-feely person, and right now, Mermista kind of needed it. She tugged Mermista over to an empty chair and forced her to sit. She protested, but Scorpia was hard to argue with. She wouldn't let her try to talk to the woman manning the desk, nor would she let Mermista flag down a passing nurse.

She wasn’t family, she realized. That was what Scorpia was trying to avoid saying. She wasn’t Sea Hawk’s family, and she couldn’t go see him.

The thought smacked her in the chest like a baseball bat. He was somewhere in the hospital maze of rooms and radiology, by himself and probably scared. She knew he had a dislike for the medicinal sterile environment of hospitals. But then, nobody liked hospitals, did they.

All these people she hadn't actively seen in months were suddenly vying for her attention, and Mermista thought that attempting to disappear down into her chair was allowed under the circumstances.

Slowly, she got the whole story out of everyone, all of them jumping to tell her their bit in some sort of sick twisted version of popcorn reading. She listened with dulled, muffled ears, like they were telling her from underwater.

Catra and Adora had been on their way out of town when they had seen the truck flipped over in the ditch. Recognizing it, they had gone to see if Sea Hawk was alright. He’d still been in the cab, pinned upside down by his seatbelt. He had a bloody nose, which soothed Mermista just a little about the blood she had seen. Adora had forced the door open with her freakish strength, and Catra had cut the seatbelt with the bowie knife she kept in Adora’s truck.

“Just in case,” she said, shrugging.

“In case of _what?_ ” Mermista had come out of her fugue to ask.

“In case.” Catra refused to elaborate further.

Both of them had had some first aid training, having been the athletic directors for Camp Bright Moon, and Adora had checked him for neck injuries before letting him try to stand. 

“He seemed okay,” Adora said, close to tears by now. “He was fine, and then he _wasn’t._ ”

Apparently, as soon as they’d gotten him to his feet, Sea Hawk’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head, and his knees buckled. Between the pair of them, they’d been able to carry him up the hill and into the backseat of Adora’s truck.

“And then I called Glimmer, because I didn’t have your number, and I didn’t know who else to call, and Glimmer didn’t have it either, but she said she’d meet us here with Bow, and-”

“-and then I remembered that Scorpia would probably have it,” Glimmer interjected, twisting her hands. Bow reached up to pull them apart and held one between both of his palms. “But I didn’t have Scorpia’s number either, so I had to call Perfuma-”

“-who didn’t answer because she sleeps like the dead,” said Scorpia, blushing as she admitted that she had picked up Perfuma’s phone, and for once Mermista just didn’t have it in her to tease her employee. She was just grateful that _someone_ had been able to get ahold of her eventually.

Pausing, she thought for a moment, and then gestured to Entrapta and Hordak. “What about you two?”

Entrapta looked sheepish. “Bow called and wanted me to go look at the truck to see if I could save it, but I couldn’t find it in the snow, so I came here instead.” she looked down at her boots. “And I wanted to be here for Sea Hawk. He’s my friend.” she said simply.

Mermista’s heart soared. Yeah, she thought. Yeah, these were Sea Hawk’s friends. And they were just as worried about him as she was.  
They could even be _their_ friends, if she tried harder, maybe?

Not the time.

Sea Hawk had been _extremely_ lucky. His old truck didn’t have airbags, and he had probably hit the steering wheel with his whole chest at least once. The fact he wasn’t dead immediately was a bit of a miracle, and she was so thankful that his seatbelt had kept him mostly in place. 

He had escaped with two broken ribs, a broken nose, and bruises. He hadn’t hit his head in a dangerous way, and the impact of the steering column somehow hadn’t injured him worse. He would even get to go home that night, as they had already done a CT scan to check his brain for swelling. His blackout had been from pain, apparently, rather than anything more serious.

The broken ribs were going to _suck._ But that was better than the alternative.

That was what she kept telling herself. It was better than what _could have happened._ Better than another sort of call she could have received tonight. She scuffed her boots on the linoleum under her chair, listening to the squeak and letting Scorpia fuss over her.

Eventually, _finally_ they wheeled him out. Mermista lifted her head from Scorpia’s shoulder and stared at him.

It was a quarter to one in the morning, and he was _alive_.

Nobody else had even gotten the chance to move before she was on her feet, taking the distance between them at a jerking lope, her legs threatening to give out beneath her twice in one night.

One of his eyes was blackened, and both were unfocused as he looked at her. His hair was a disaster and he’d be horrified to see the state of his mustache in a mirror. They clearly had him on some very strong painkiller, because he grinned dopily at her approach. Her heart lurched as she wondered if he even remembered their last interaction, their fight.

Ignoring the fact that they were currently in a room full of people, people they both knew and knew that she didn’t do things like this, and mindful of his broken nose, Mermista leaned down to press a soft kiss to his mouth, trying to pour her feelings of relief into it so he would get the message.

Sea Hawk’s lips tasted like blood, like copper, but she didn’t care. She pulled away, placed a hand on his cheek, and said, “There’s like, other ways to win an argument, Sea Hawk.”

His goofy grin at her was hazy. She heard the nurse wheeling him say something about morphine for his broken ribs. “I crashed my truck,” he proclaimed proudly, if not a little bit slurred. “I didn’t mean to. Mermista’s gonna be mad.” his brow furrowed. “She was already mad. She’s gonna be upset instead. She hates being upset. I made her upset. Twice!” he fretted, looking very concerned.

She knelt in front of him, trying to get him to focus, to recognize her. “Sea Hawk, I’m not upset. I’m just...really glad you’re okay.”

His eyes widened as something seemed to click. “Mermista! Mermista is here, I love her!”

She could hear the group trying not to snicker behind her as she dropped her face into her hands in embarrassment. The nurse who was babysitting him clearly was having the time of her life tonight, because she said, “He hasn’t shut up about you since he woke back up.”

That should _not_ have made her blush, but it did, and now that she knew he was fine, she was kind of pissed about it. So she stepped back, and let everyone else gush over him while he kept smiling that same silly smile at his friends, and if she was holding his hand the whole time, that was her business.

Anybody who brought it up later would be dead to her, _Scorpia._

Getting everyone to say their goodbyes was like herding cats, and at the end of it her polite Customer Service smile was firmly in place, strained and thin.

The nurse helped her get him into her passenger seat, gave her the prescription note she would have to fill at the 24 hour pharmacy across the street, and shook her hand.

The woman, probably about her mother's age, squinted at her through the snow. "I don't know what happened between you two before this," she said, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. Mermista wondered how she wasn't freezing. "But he doesn't seem to be angry at you. I'd stop worrying about that, and start worrying about how to make him sit still long enough to heal." She gave Sea Hawk a nod and turned on her nonslip sneakers to stride back to the ER.

Mermista huffed out a breath somewhere between a sigh and a half-hysterical laugh, looking down at Sea Hawk's drug-dozy form.

One hell of a night.

~~~

The next morning did not start off much better. Mermista groaned, wondering why her neck felt like she'd slept on her couch.

Blinking in the sunlight, she realized that she had, in fact, spent the night on her couch.

Trying to pop her back and realign her spine, she recalled that she had propped Sea Hawk into her - _their_ \- bed last night, and used all of her pillows in the process to keep him supported upright.

She had heard somewhere not to let people with broken ribs lay flat, especially if their painkillers would be worn off by the time they woke up.

She got up, went to brush her teeth, and as she stared at her haggard reflection in the mirror, she wondered exactly what she could say to him.

Judging by his snoring, she had a bit of time to think it over, and so she went puttering about the apartment until he awoke from his drug-induced stupor. 

It made her feel somehow both restless and useless, the waiting.

It was nearly two pm, and she had called in sick and let Scorpia take over the Shack for the day by the time Sea Hawk woke up.

She still didn't know what to say to him, so as she leaned on the bedroom door frame, she settled on "Are you like, hungry or…?"

Sea Hawk groaned, tried to lift his arm to touch his nose, and then winced as the movement pulled at his tender ribs. The nurse said she was supposed to stop him from putting his arms over his head for at least two weeks if she could help it, and she had a feeling it was going to be a long fortnight. 

"I feel like I've been hit by a truck."

She came to perch carefully on the side of the mattress, taking great pains not to jostle him. "Close. You wrecked the absolute _shit_ out of the Scottsdale."

Sea Hawk paled considerably, throwing the bruising on his face into sharp relief. Mermista reached out to brush back a stray lock of hair that had fallen into his black eye's field of vision.

"And the old girl, is she…?"

Mermista nodded woefully. Entrapta had called while he was out, having located Sea Hawk's truck in the morning light, and regretfully pronounced it totalled. "Entrapta says she'll help you get a new truck. Like, a better truck. One with airbags."

She bit her lip, deepening the bruise she’d already worked into it the night before. "Sea Hawk, about last night…I'm sorry." She held up a hand when he started to protest. "And I was already sorry for it the second you shut the door, it has nothing to do with like, you getting the fuck kicked out of you by some snow. I'm just. I'm sorry." She fussed with the bedspread, tugging at a loose thread on her blue comforter. "I freaked out on you, and it wasn't even anything you did. I'm just like, a big mess." She shrugged helplessly.

He reached out to twine his fingers with hers, pulling her fidgety hand towards him. "Mermista...I know you have a lot of trouble expressing yourself. I know that what I said scared you. And I know that we _are_ going to have to discuss at length exactly what it is that poked such a sore spot because if we don't, this is going to fester between us. I don't want that," he rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand. "And I'm sorry too. For worrying you. Dearest, you must have been horrified."

Mermista sniffled, yanking back her hand to try to discreetly wipe away the tears starting to gather in the corners of her eyes. When that didn't work she stared at the ceiling and let them roll freely down her cheeks. They dripped off her jaw and soaked into the collar of her sweatshirt. "I thought you were _dead_ , you asshole."

"I love you, Mermista."

"Shut up. I'll let you watch _Jason Takes Manhattan_ on my tablet if you shut up." Her tear-strangled stammer had very little bite to it, but he took her hand again anyway. He pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers and Mermista choked on a sob.

"Please," she said, not sounding at all herself as she stared at the stucco ceiling that glittered in the tackiest way. " _Please_ don't do that again."

"Yes, dearest," he agreed readily.

If she spent the day curled up next to him watching just the _absolute worst_ horror movies ever made while he dozed off and on, fighting her need to burrow up to him so she didn't set off the pain in his ribs, and fetching him his brand new prescription painkillers, then that's what she did. She'd tell anyone who asked, because that was what humans did when their loved ones were hurt. They raged and they sobbed and they comforted.

Mermista could live with people knowing she was human.

Well, maybe.

Baby steps, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> _there’s got to be something better than in the middle_
> 
> _me and cinderella_
> 
> _put it all together_
> 
> _we can drive it home_
> 
> _with one headlight…_


End file.
